You Are Not Immune to Devin Graham's Viral Videos

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You Are Not Immune to Devin Graham's Viral Videos

Devin Graham, known on YouTube as devinsupertramp, uploaded a new video over the weekend. It shows an epic snowball fight. If it's anything like his previous works, it won't be long before you watch it.

Graham is a regular Jonas Salk when it comes to viral videos, creating irresistible films that appeal to a wide audience. They're the visual equivalent of a catchy pop song that plays everywhere from a trendy club to the neighborhood grocery store.

The Provo, Utah, resident credits his success to his ability to capture that most universal of human emotions, happiness. "The videos that do the best are the videos where people are having the funnest time," Graham said, so he tries to put his audience right in the action. "Everything I do I try to make it family friendly so everyone can watch it. There is no language barrier as well because there's no dialog. It's for everyone."

We caught up with Graham, 28, just before he released his latest video. He was simultaneously editing another film and getting ready for a shoot in Park City, Utah, where he was planning to film what he described as a mashup of parkour and the game Assassin's Creed. "I'm trying to mix two kinds of ideas together in the hopes it'll go viral," he said.

Chances are, he won't have any problem with that.

Originally, Graham was studying film at Brigham Young University, hoping to work on feature films. Instead of finishing his degree, Graham decided to try his hand at making and marketing videos on YouTube. His friends were sharing videos of snowboarding adventures and other stunts, and Graham figured such subject matter would be popular with a wide variety of audiences.

He got his start after seeing a YouTube cellphone video that got 2 million views. That inspired him to put his film school training to work. "I thought, 'Dang that's amazing! What if I did the same sort of thing but raised the production value of it?'"

Now, Graham spends hours filming and editing. He still films his friends, but athletes and major corporations alike are commissioning him to turn the camera on them. When shooting his huge snowball fight, he issued a call for volunteers on his Facebook page and got more than 30 fans from Logan, Utah, to join in.

"For the most part I'm a one-man crew," he said. "I do everything but the music. Depending on what I'm filming, if I need other camera guys I'll bring in other people."

According to Graham, finding the right subject is the easiest part of the process. What distinguishes the blockbuster videos uploaded to devinsupertramp from similar subjects that can't get even 500 views is his painstaking attention to detail. "I take ideas that generally already exist and make them better," he said. "I'm a perfectionist. I'll put in 60, 70, 80 hours to edit a video and most people aren't willing to do that."

In fact, capturing the crazy, physical stunts that have become a hallmark of his films isn't nearly as demanding as the time Graham puts in behind a computer screen. "What people don't know is that most of the time, I'm at my computer editing. That's the most physically draining thing."

Although Graham got his start filming his own snowboarding stunts as a youngster, he stays out of the action now. "Most people don't realize that I don't do the things I film," he said. "I broke my back snowboarding, I broke my leg snowboarding. I let everyone else do those things. The people I do videos on, they're already doing what I'm filming. I don't want to take the risk of getting people hurt."

For someone who works with daredevils he's had a pretty good track record when it comes to safety. "Nobody's ever died or had to go to the hospital or anything like that," he said, though some people did pass out after hitting the water in the human slingshot film. "We had to run in the water and pull them out," he said.

Creating viral videos has become Graham's full-time job. While YouTube pageviews provide a small source of income, he makes the most money when a company purchases his footage for commercial use. Recently, he's sold clips to Coca-Cola and the U.S. government's travel and tourism campaign.

Even though it's springtime in the northern hemisphere, Graham expects his snowball fight video to do well, precisely because it shows people having fun. "Everything was kind of staged, but we made it look like a full action war scene and super intense, but also at the same time super fun," he said. "Honestly, you can't really show people having fun if they're not really having fun, so I try to make sure people are really having the time of their life. I'll make people laugh and make jokes with them.